Proverbs 5:16 (Mini Sermon)

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1.      Pro 5:16 – “Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets.”

1. Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad,
   1. Fountain n. – 1. a. A spring or source of water issuing from the earth and collecting in a basin, natural or artificial; also, the head-spring or source of a stream or river.
   2. Dispersed ppl. – 1. Scattered or spread about; driven asunder; diffused.

• Abroad – 1. a. Broadly, widely, at large, over a broad or wide surface.

1. Fountains figuratively represent the following things in scripture.
   1. Life (Psa 36:9; Pro 13:14; Pro 14:27)
   2. Love (Son 4:12, 15)
2. Marital love produces life.
   1. The “fountains” are the source of children which are begotten in holy marriage.
   2. Children are called a man’s “issue” because he is their source (Gen 48:6; Mat 22:25) and they “issue” from him (2Ki 20:18).
      • Issue n. – 1. a. The action of going, passing, or flowing out; egress, exit; power of egress or exit; outgoing, outflow.  III. 6.  a. Offspring, progeny; a child or children; a descendant or descendants.
      • Issue v. – 1. a. To go or come out; to flow out; to come forth, sally out. Often with out or forth. To proceed as offspring; to be born, or descended. Now only in legal use. Cf. sense 8.  8. To give birth to; to bear (offspring), have issue. Obs. rare in active; frequent in pass. in sense: To be born, to spring; = sense 2.
      • Children “come forth” from their father (Gen 15:4; 1Ki 8:19).
   3. Godly children which come from marriage will be spread broadly throughout the land and will be a blessing to it.
   4. The children of Israel were “come forth out of the waters of Judah” (Isa 48:1), and they were a numerous seed.
   5. On the contrary, sinners “shall commit whoredom, and shall not increase” (Hos 4:10).
3. and rivers of waters in the streets.
   1. Drinking waters out of thine own well will produce fountains from which will flow rivers of waters in the streets.
      1. Children which issue forth from marriage play in the streets (Zec 8:5).
      2. These “rivers of waters” are the godly offspring which a man will be happy to publicly own.
      3. “and rivers of waters in the streets; meaning a numerous posterity as before; and such as a man is not ashamed publicly to own, whereas he is ashamed of such as are unlawfully begotten; but these are to his honour in the streets, and for public good; and particularly to those to whom they are given in marriage;” (John Gill’s Commentary, commenting on Pro 5:16)